


The Sun and All the Stars

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Astronomy, F/M, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 19:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14817447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: In which the stars move in their courses and work their magic on two people who scoff at the idea that atmospheric phenomena have any impact on human behaviour.[Jemma lives in the shadow of the Greenwich Observatory in the 1830s; Fitz works there and boards with Jemma's family. What one would expect to happen, does.]





	The Sun and All the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ughfitz (wokemeup)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wokemeup/gifts).



> I am the worst Secret Valentine ever, but here it is, three months late! It's much less than you deserve, my friend.

As is usual at four bells of the morning watch, the London sky was grey—but the iridescent grey of an ormer shell, and Venus winking winsomely at the women clustered around the water pump whispered that it might be a beautiful day. Jemma Simmons winked back as she lifted her full bucket, mentally composing the entry for her daily log book:  _ Venus at approx. 30 degrees 87 degrees, more or less six in the morning. _ She wished for more accurate information, but without the proper tools to measure angles and seconds, she’d have to be content with church bells and her own two hands. It must be said that while Jemma did make a valiant effort at contentment, she often found it difficult when she knew for a fact that the bells were nearly five minutes different to the time kept by the best clocks. The black ball at the peak of the hill reminded the surrounding streets every afternoon.

“Good day, Miss Simmons.”

Water slopped onto her boots, bringing her coldly back back to earth. 

“Oh dear, my apologies—I didn’t mean—here, shall I take it for you?” A gloved hand nearly covered hers on the handle and she let go immediately, casting a backwards glance at the nosy biddies before looking up at the man whose simple greeting had certainly not been intended to make such a splash: Mr. Leopold Fitz, Second Assistant at the Royal Observatory on the hill looming above them, Scotsman, scientist, and the Simmons’ family new lodger. “Sorry,” he said again, hefting the bucket uneasily. “I didn’t intend to startle you; I thought it better to speak than follow behind you all the way. I’m just coming from the Observatory, you see.”

It was more words than she had heard him say together in the three weeks he had been lodging with them, and she began walking towards the house to hide that she scarcely knew how to respond. “Yes, I see. Is...all well, at the Observatory?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, the sun should rise right on time, and it looks to be a beautiful day.”

The joke startled her even more than cold water down her ankles. “I thought the same!” she cried, “though, since you have said it will be fine, I feel I must say that it will rain later, like as not.”

“Well, one must have a reason to complain,” said he, sober, “and the weather is the most reliable.”

“Just so.” She cast a quick glance sideways, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth; Mr. Fitz mirrored her, though neither let it continue past initial awareness. “A fine day is better for your work, I expect?”

“A fine night, yes. Or, well, I actually do much of my work with the chronometers, which has more to do with mathematics than anything else, so the weather doesn’t make much difference. But my master, Mr. Airy, he prefers fine weather, of course.”

“Of course.”

They continued in silence, he with the bucket and she a great many questions. Though she had lived in the shadow of the Royal Observatory her whole life, the secrets discovered behind its high walls and iron gates kept anyone uninvited in the pitch-dark. Never had she had a better opportunity to receive answers, and yet she could not find the way to ask.

“Shall I take the water in?”

“Oh! No.” She took back the bucket from him firmly; Mrs. Simmons would object strenuously to the lodger doing any work. “Thank you. You ought to go in the front; the back’s only for the family.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course.”

She watched him dash around the corner, silhouetted in the rising sun, with no small regret at her lost opportunity; still, had she been able to do as she wished, she likely would have been late with the water and the entirety of the day would have suffered accordingly. She had breakfast to help get for the household, and washing and mending and baking—there was not time to regret impossibilities. They were a luxury not granted the eldest daughter in a genteely impoverished home.

The Simmons household contained, with regularity: Mr. Simmons, formerly a surgeon in the Royal Navy until a stray cannonball took his left leg as payment for leaving him his life; Mrs. Simmons, whose spotless starched cap belied the amount of work it took to keep it so; Jemma’s five siblings still at home, ranging in age from sixteen to six; a watercolour of the Simmons’ eldest son, smiling benevolently down from the mantlepiece while the original was somewhere in the East Indies; Jemma, right hand of her mother and prop of her father; a maid to do the heavy cleaning; and a male lodger, interchangeable with the man before him and the man after. In Jemma’s twenty years of life she recalled several copyists, three clerks, five shop assistants, and more naval men on half-pay than the pebbles on the shore. None stayed long. Their home in Greenwich was neither smart nor convenient and thus unattractive to a clientele who could afford the berth. Mr. Fitz had proved himself an anomaly by paying his room and board several months in advance and expressing no intention to leave. “It’s pleasant and near the Observatory,” said he when Mrs. Simmons delicately approached the subject, “unless my situation changes in other respects I see no reason to alter it in this one.”

“And it is a fact,” said that lady to her daughter, “we could do a great deal worse, though he does keep odd hours and eat his weight in sausages.”

To her mother Jemma agreed as easily as she might admit it looked like rain, but privately she used rather more fervent language: she found it difficult to imagine a lodger  _ better _ than Mr. Fitz. Her wide experience had left her rather skeptical of the male sex in general. Excepting her excellent father, she had known only boorish bores and spineless sponges; either way, all they cared for was to have their own needs met and wishes granted, without any consideration for anyone else’s desires or convenience. No matter how often Mrs. Simmons reminded her that it was their duty to serve, Jemma could not help but feel the Type of a Lodger expected slavery instead—that is, until the advent of Mr. Fitz who, though forced by his position to keep hours resembling those of a bat, still blacked his own boots, ate meals when the family did and did not request special favours at other times, and made an effort to call the young Simmons by the correct name when he met them in the corridors. For the mere pleasure of not being mistaken for Lizzy, Jemma would cheerfully fry sausages in the dog watch of the night, should Mr. Fitz require it. That he never even hinted at desiring such a thing only made her more inclined to admiration.

“And he’s very handsome, too,” giggled Lizzy when out of Mrs. Simmons’ hearing, old enough to be aware of handsome gentlemen but young enough to not care for propriety. Jemma, older and wiser, chastised her sister appropriately. Male lodgers were to be treated with a reverence only one degree removed from that one owed the clergy; better for all if a man came and went without anyone being aware he was a human being at all. Still, in her heart Jemma believed fervently in admitting the truth to oneself, and the bare truth was that while Mr. Fitz was not precisely Beau Brummell, something about his pale diffidence and quiet soberness kept her watching him from under her eyelashes. She did not find this fact to be at all alarming. Their nearly opposite busy hours did not often find them in the same place, and she saw no harm in observation when the chance presented itself. He was only one of several items of interest to which she paid particular attention, after all, and nowhere near the head of the list. Man—any man—can hardly compare with the cosmos.

Poor Jemma, however, had very little time for observations of any sort. The ruthless wrestling of her time to allow even a few minutes to scrawl her observations in her logbook taxed even her considerable intellect, leading her to keep inkwells and quill pens in the most curious places, while her logbook resided permanently in her capacious apron pocket. One morning, she took advantage of the necessity of warming irons to note that morning’s positions, her words blurry in the steamy dampness of the cloth-draped room:  _ Venus in decline and scarcely visible, sun at— _

“Miss Simmons?”

Ink spread across her page and she leapt for the blotting paper, biting back the unladylike word that sprang to her tongue. “Mr. Fitz!”

He came apologetically into the room, hands spread before him. “I’m sorry to startle you, I only wondered if I might...have some tea? Just a cup, before I must away to the Observatory. If it is no trouble to you.”

She rose with a half curtsey, leaving her still-wet book open upon the table, and dodged the drying laundry to pull the kettle over the warmest part of the fire. “It shouldn’t take long,” she said, though he would certainly know the time it took water to boil.

 “It’s all right if it is, I’ve a bit of time. I’m not due before half past twelve.”

“And what time is it now?”

“Oh, it’s—” From his pocket appeared a timepiece like none she had seen: twice as large as an ordinary watch and ornately engraved on both back and cover. “A quarter-hour before twelve, give or take a few seconds; it won’t be solar noon until I adjust it. True noon, that is, when the sun—”

“—reaches its zenith, yes. I am familiar with the term; my father—”

“—was a sailor, of course.” He returned the watch to its place, ducking his head. “My apologies. I’m afraid I’m rather accustomed to explaining myself to anyone not a member of my profession.”

“The sun belongs to everyone,” she said, “and we’re all bound by time whether we measure it in seconds or shadows.”

His eyes grew wide. “Just so.”

There seemed to be nothing else to say, so Jemma did not say it, stooping instead to see if the irons had reached an acceptable temperature. While a tedious task, even ironing might be preferable to standing in silence, unsure what to do with her hands.

“What do you write in your book?”

The heat of the fire had turned Jemma’s cheeks rosy, but Mr. Fitz, carefully not meeting her astonished gaze, had no such excuse for the matching shade staining his. “Er,” he said, flushing impossibly deeper, “I oughtn’t to have asked, I apologise—of course everyone is allowed their own secrets. Only I’ve seen you writing in it seven of the last ten times we’ve been in company, and curiosity is the thorn in my side, so I couldn’t help but ask. Forgive my presumption.”

Mrs. Simmons would no doubt have counselled her daughter to do just that: graciously forgive and forget, gently refusing to allow Mr. Fitz a privilege no other lodger in the course of Jemma’s life had enjoyed. She ought, perhaps, to have done so; one cannot be too careful in sharing one’s heart, and the logbook was Jemma’s carried around in her pocket. 

Instead—and if pressed, she would be unable to explain why—she brushed down her apron and lifted her chin. “If you’ll let me see your pocketwatch.”

A light kindled in Mr. Fitz’s eyes, and he unclipped the chain from its loop and pulled the timepiece from his pocket, holding it out to her with one hand. She accepted it in two, not having realized his hands were so much bigger than hers. “It’s not a watch, exactly; it’s a chronometer, or it would like to be one. It isn’t accurate enough. The maker was so bad-tempered when I told him we weren’t able to recommend it that he nearly threw it at my head like a fishwife.”

“How accurate is it?”

“Oh, it will lose six seconds in a few weeks.”

While little enough on dry land, six seconds in time can be the difference between life and death in longitude on the open sea. Still, Jemma had never seen, much less handled, a watch so accurate. Bringing it up to her ear, she listened to the methodical  _ tick _ in wonder. “You’re permitted to just keep it?”

“Mr. Airy doesn’t want anything to do with them—astronomers preferred the lunar method of finding longitude, and they’re still rather annoyed the mechanical method prevailed.”

“The lunar method is more elegant, I think, but one can’t pretend it’s more accurate. Nor are most people equipped to do the calculations, though I find them delightful.”

“As do I. Er, if you press that knob, there, the glass—”

“—lifts! For cleaning? How clever.” She examined the little hands and knobs, careful not to touch anything, then closed the cover and returned it. “Thank you; I have long wished to see a chronometer. I wish it were possible to look at the works as well.”

“They’re a thing of beauty,” said he, pocketing the device. “If you could see them, you would find them more elegant than the lunar method, I expect.”

“Oh, that could not be so. The moon with its phases and courses is one of the most lovely things there is.”

“Except when it disappears.”

“True,” she said, “but then one can better see the stars.”

“You’re”—he looked down at the toe of his boots, only the inclination of his chin signifying his words were meant for her—“you’re fond of the stars, then?”

“I love them,” she said fervently, yet not so fervently as she felt. “My father taught me how to chart them when I was a small girl and I’ve always—ever since.”

“That’s what you write,” he said. His eyes went to the logbook lying open between them, and he took a step towards the table. “You’re keeping records of your observations?”

Although Jemma referred to her activities in precisely those terms, no one had ever spoken them out loud; in the unfamiliar cadences of Mr. Fitz’s voice, they sounded slightly ridiculous. She took a step forwards as well, one finger caressing the edge of the book protectively. “They’re nothing like so impressive as your work, I am sure; I’m rather limited by lacking instruments or, well, much of anything—”

“Which do you follow?”

“Oh, er—” The same ones she had for the last fifteen years, but suddenly their names escaped her. “Vega, of course. Cassiopeia. Venus, every day, and the other planets when possible. Corona Borealis—”

“Because your name star is there?”

She could not help but gape at him, unladylike though it may be. “I beg your pardon?”

“In the Corona—the brightest star is called, er, forgive me, but it’s called Gemma.”

Mr. Fitz had no reason to know that  _ Jemma _ was, in fact, short for the given name  _ Jemima  _ shared with her grandmother, but then he had very little reason to know that  _ Miss Simmons _ was called Jemma at all. Mrs. Simmons, aware as only a mother can be, did not use familiar names before the lodgers; Mr. Simmons called all his daughters  _ my dear _ more than anything else, and the others didn’t speak very much at all. How he had come by that information, Jemma was too confused to wonder; those who do not have to hide their furious blushing and attempt a response may not need to.

“It’s because it can be seen easily without a telescope. I’ve got my father’s old spyglass, but I can seldom spare time to use it. It’s all very bits-and-pieces, I’m afraid, nothing like what I should like to do, but—”

“Please,” he said quickly, placing his hand on the table just beyond the book, “don’t feel a need to excuse yourself. I know what it is—well, I haven’t always had the advantages of the Observatory, either; that you’re doing this on your own with nothing to speak of is remarkable.” His lips thinned into a tight line, a firm if unconscious defence, and his hand returned to the more appropriate position at his side. “I haven’t, er, noticed a clock in the house?”

The clock had gone in the early days of Mr. Simmons’ recovery, but Jemma knew better than to say so. “The house hasn’t much need for one, I’m afraid.”

“It must make it difficult to keep your observations.”

“Oh well,” she said, as though it were not nearly impossible.

Mr. Fitz looked thoughtfully into the corner of the room. “Were I to tell you the time of the sunrise and sunset each day, would you find it at all helpful? Though we keep track of those stars as well, it would be our observations and not yours, which might do away with your enjoyment of it, I think?”

“Entirely,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Fitz, that would be very helpful. If it wouldn’t be a trouble to you.”

“Not at all,” he said with a small smile. “It would be a pleasure.”

A  _ ss-puut-ss _ drew their attention to the hearth, where the kettle boiled so merrily it couldn’t help but let water escape its iron grip. Jemma devoted her attention to the requested tea, suddenly unwilling to meet Mr. Fitz’s eyes, even by accident; he appeared to be doing much the same, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Whatever bravery allowed the few minutes of conversation seemed to have vanished in the kettle’s steam. Jemma hardly knew what to think of it, even her prodigious intellect producing only half-sentences that ended in inkblots not unlike the one covering fully half a page of her logbook. She had no way to classify what had just happened: not a conversation with a tradesman, or a family member, or even a young man between dance steps, but something entirely outside her present experience. And not, perhaps, something entirely safe. Tea brewed, she poured out a cup and willed her hand not to shake as she handed it to him, trembling though her insides might be. He thanked her graciously, bowing his head as if preparing to depart. Until—

“Miss Simmons, I say, would you care for some pencils?”

“I beg your pardon?”

With his free hand, he gestured to the book. “I notice that you use ink but haven’t got time always to let it dry—if you were to write the observations in pencil first, and use ink when you’ve more time, it might preserve them a little better? I’ve got extras that I sharpen when I’m reflecting on a particularly difficult problem; I’ll never go through them all.”

Once again, Jemma knew the proper response; respectable girls did not accept gifts beyond flowers from gentlemen. Stationary, however, proved a temptation too powerful to resist, and she accepted demurely, half expecting him to pull one out of his pocket. He did not, only bowed again and left her sight until breakfast the next morning, where he behaved exactly the same as always: quiet, deferential, and politely unaware of anyone not passing the gravy. With the distance of time, Jemma began to question whether she had simply imagined the whole thing, pushing aside the foolish regret that twined through her chest. She did not require exact times or sharpened pencils to continue as she had done, after all.

While true, the fact did not stop her pleased smile when she discovered the three graphite pencils bundled together with a bit of string and a small, neat note:  _ sunrise at 6:23; sunset at 8:02 _ .

It being quite improper for young women to receive private notes from young men, no matter how innocent, after that first time Mr. Fitz passed on the information verbally. When they were unable to speak, he wrote down the times for several days together and waited patiently for her to record them; more frequently he found her at work in the house and imparted it then and there, often holding her dustcloth or broom or knife while she made use of his supplied pencils and dashed it down quickly. As she wrote, she would often verify her own observations, finding them to be accurate within a degree or so nearly every time.

“You have a natural talent for astronomy,” said Mr. Fitz admiringly, roughly quartering potatoes while she inked in her observations for the previous two days.

“I have some talent, some practice, a little knowledge, and a great deal of desire. Which isn’t enough, I am more than aware.”

“It’s all that I had.”

Knowing the entirety of Mr. Fitz’s history—gently squeezed out of him before Mrs. Simmons could assent to his lodging with her impressionable daughters—Jemma could not agree. Their similarly humble origins diverged as soon as a generous patron sent Mr. Fitz to a good school, from whence another interested party arranged a place for him at university, and a third recommended him to the Astronomer Royal. None of these fortuitous events had occurred, or would even be possible, for her. “And the not inconsiderate benefit of your sex.”

Her present regret sharpened the words that had, until recently, been worn down at the heels, and Mr. Fitz made observation his living. Quietly, he agreed, “Yes. There is that.” A piece of potato flew across the kitchen; he retrieved it and blew off any lingering dust. “Did you know, the first four Astronomer Royals were gentlemen? None of them received any pay for their work at the Observatory.”

She pressed the rocking blotter against the page so hard it nearly skidded from her grasp. “Is it meant to be a comfort, that a world that was once the province of an amateur has now become something only for the few who can achieve enough to be worth a wage?”

“No. I only thought, if a field that was only the province of wealthy men could grow to allow in men of no background like Mr. Airy and myself, surely in time it will do the same for ladies.”

Time is long and slow to change; the first four Astronomers Royal had a tenure between them of over a century, and men are far less likely to allow women into their exclusive societies than other men, no matter how poor. Both Jemma and Mr. Fitz knew this. Yet somehow, his kindness in hoping for a better future made it seem all the more likely, and for once Jemma felt the possibility not quite so remote, after all. “Perhaps. And in the meantime, the sky continues to belong to all men in equal measure, so I will take the share of it I am allowed.”

“Well,” said he, placing the knife carefully on the table, “you’re doing better than five of Mr. Airy’s assistants.”

“Aren’t there six?”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but I myself am the sixth, and as my primary responsibility is to press a trigger at a certain time, I feel confident in saying we would perform that task equally well. Of course, one could likely train a well-behaved monkey to do the same.” She laughed, a generous sound that sought to share her pleasure with anyone who heard it, and he joined with a slightly larger smile than was his wont. “Unfortunately, since that is not presently practicable, I must away to my duty. The Ball won’t descend if I’m not there to let it down.”

“And as our men at sea would surely perish if it did not, I grant your departure with all my heart.”

Being unused to the company of young women, Mr. Fitz took her words more literally than they were meant and spent much of that day growling at his fellow workers. Had he been able to know that Jemma arranged her activities every day to allow careful observance of the great black Time Ball’s descent from 12:55 to 1  _ post meridiem _ precisely, his mood would certainly have improved—but it is also possible that his concentration would  _ not _ , and it is best, therefore, that fact remained a secret for some time.

Mr. Fitz’s modesty—or desire to hear Jemma laugh—made him understate his responsibilities. His post as Second Assistant also gave him oversight of the extensive testing prospective chronometers underwent, as well as clock ratings and the computation of observations from the great Transit telescope. As one might imagine, all these things together took a great deal of time; in winter, when the sun only graced the earth with her presence for a few hours together, he might be occupied with his work from noon until sunrise, when everyone was sent briefly to their beds. As time spun on to the longest day, however, he found more and more opportunity to escape the Observatory and return to the Simmons home, snatching the few hours of decent rest and supper offered there rather than the cold meal and cot provided by Mr. Airy. At least that was the reason provided. As he was happy to pay a few more shillings per week for board Mrs. Simmons saw no reason to say him nay, and Jemma reminded him that walking was meant to be beneficial to one’s health.

“Indeed,” said he, “as I would otherwise spend the entirety of my life in a chair computing. Were the stars not in the sky I would likely go days without seeing it.”

“My father said the same, when he was on his ships; there would days spent below decks with sick men and the smell of blood everywhere. Oh, my apologies, Mr. Fitz!”

Though pale, he smiled gallantly. “Never mind, it’s only my foolish imagination. And how is Mr. Simmons? I’ve missed his company at table.”

Jemma attempted a reassuring smile and changed the subject. The incident that took Mr. Simmons’ leg cost him his health as well, and he was susceptible to long periods of illness at every change in the weather. While he was never in danger of death, he did require a great deal of care, demanding Mrs. Simmons’ dedicated attention and forcing the rest of the household to fill in her absence. This particular summer found him worse than any other season in Jemma’s memory. If left to herself she would have confided her concern to Mr. Fitz, but her mother, afraid that he would be loathe to stay in a house of illness, adamantly refused to make him aware of the situation. They could none of them risk his loss.

When, therefore, she met him one near-twilight as she came back from the market with some eggs for a junket to tempt the invalid’s appetite, she made light of her errand and brushed away his concern. “Only fine ladies must be accompanied everywhere they go, Mr. Fitz; I am quite safe in my own lane, where I have chaperones in every house.” She cast a merry glance over his shoulder. “In fact, I may be subject to more talk by you walking with me than I would alone.”

“Shall I hurry ahead, then?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Unless you will be tardy, in which case—”

“I won’t be.”

“Then you are very welcome.”

Unofficial chaperones, every young couple knows, are more zealous in their duties than official ones; the most innocent of flirtations can easily become sordid in the hands of those who have nothing else to lend significance to their lives. Even the most inquisitive, however, would find nothing to chatter about in the behaviour of the two making their way slowly down the street, who observed all propriety in manner and speech—namely, speaking little and touching not at all. Mr. Fitz steadfastly observed the cobblestones at their feet. Jemma was aware of the whisp of the wind and the sound of her own blood beating at her temples, though she could not say why her heart raced more with a companion than without.

“Well, that’s sundown.”

Jemma turned to Mr. Fitz curiously, seeing him slip his not-chronometer into his pocket. “You’re not meant to be at the Observatory for it?”  
“Not my responsibility, thankfully. I only must be there before Venus shows her face—though, Miss Simmons, can I confess that were I not I would still be able to correctly record the time? There’s something to be said for consistency.”

“Does it become dull?”

“The work? At times. The observation? Never.”

“I’m glad to hear it. At times I wonder if I only find it so marvelous because it’s such a rare event.”

“I don’t know,” said he, “that one ever becomes accustomed to such loveliness.” His step faltered, only briefly, and he spoke again in quite a different tone. “Miss Simmons, I wonder, would you—I’d like to show you something, if I may. If your errand is not so urgent that they’re looking for you at home. If you like.”

“I would like,” said she without hesitation, “it is not so urgent, and I’m perfectly content to enjoy the evening a little longer.”

“Come with me, then.”

To her astonishment, he turned their steps away from her home, leading them out of the tangle of houses and close air, drawing her steadily through back paths towards—could it be?—Greenwich Park. The high hill loomed above them before he stopped, taking in a deep draught of the fresh breeze blowing the corners of her shawl and the hem of her dress. “I wish I could take you further up,” said he, regretful. “At the top you can see for miles, nothing but sky; it’s the best view I’ve ever seen, even if I only see it through an eyepiece.”

“Here is quite grand enough for me.” Jemma’s breath seemed to have deserted her, and not due to the climb; the wide welkin, still streaked with sunset fading faintly purple, made her excessively conscious of her own insignificance in the scheme of the cosmos. She felt she could almost see the curve of the earth. “It looks quite different without buildings spoiling the view.”

“The first time I saw the stars in the country, I was certain more had appeared since the last time I looked.”

“My father says that there are more stars that we can even imagine, that one could count them all one’s life and never reach the end.”

“And some appear where we didn’t see them before, and some disappear from where they’ve always been.”

“That puts me in mind of a question.” Without looking away from the view, she asked, “my father says that there are some nights when stars fall out of the sky like a cannon barrage, hundreds of them at once. That isn’t so, is it?”

“It is,” said he, “at least, something that’s called falling stars. We don’t know what they are really.”

“I thought not,” said she with satisfaction, “they couldn’t be falling stars, because if hundreds fall at a time the sky would be much less bright, after all these years. It isn’t sound logic.”

“The ancients believed that you could request a boon if you saw one, and it would be granted.”

“My father told us that, too. But it’s silly to think atmospheric phenomena have any effect on the course of human events.”

Her disdain was nearly comical, but Mr. Fitz did not feel inclined to laugh.  “It’s the difference, isn’t it, between a naturalist and Mr. Wordsworth: one sees things as they are, and one with a beauty he wishes they had.”

Though surprised and amused by the notion of Mr. Fitz perusing a volume of Romantic poetry, Jemma did not tease. Instead, lifting her face to the sky, she spoke fervently. “Oh, but things as they are have beauty enough to satisfy anyone, if one sees them rightly. Look at the heavens, Mr. Fitz, are they less glorious for moving across the sky in orderly and predictable patterns? Are flowers, because they bloom every spring? Are babies, because women have had them for all history?”

At this last she glanced at him, suddenly aware that she had broached a forbidden topic in her enthusiasm. Rather than dismay and disgust, however, his eyes reflected only softness, and his slow smile reflected her own wonder. “No,” said he, sounding slightly out of breath in his turn. “No, the world as it is is nearly too beautiful to bear sometimes.”

Perhaps another time—were they not standing in a park on a beautiful summer night, sky turning darker and the evening star awaiting her cue—perhaps then, Jemma might have heard in his words only what he said, and continued the conversation in the same comradely fashion that had, heretofore, been their habit. But very few women are entirely stalwart in such circumstances, and even less so when one’s companion has eyes the color of the sky at the dawning of a beautiful day  and brilliance and kindness unmatched in the entirety of one’s acquaintance. Despite the cool breeze, Jemma felt as warm as if she sat before a fire.

“Miss Simmons.”

“Yes?” asked Jemma, hoping desperately for she knew not what.

Mr. Fitz’s mouth opened, then shut again, as though he had thought the better of what he wanted to say. Turning away from her, he made his hands into fists and shoved them into his pockets. “If it was true, though,” said he, in quite a different tone. “If you could wish on a star and be sure it would be granted, what would you ask?”

And, though the loss of his gaze brought the return of her sense, Jemma ignored the rules of propriety that encouraged a light response and answered honestly, as she could not help but do with him. “To discover something wonderful.”

“What would you discover?”

“Oh, anything!” She gestured widely to the vast expanse, her fingers brushing a myriad mysteries. “A comet, like Miss Herschel. A planet, like her brother. Even a star—there must be so many no one has followed or named or noticed. But I never can.”

“If Miss Herschel can, why can’t you? I’m sure you’re as clever as she.”

“Mr. Fitz.” The sky seemed to grow heavy all of a sudden, weighted with secrets she could not access. “We’ve spoken of this before.”

“But if you had—”

“But I do not, and I never shall. Patrons and equipment don’t come to ladies for the asking, not when they’re only playing astronomer.”

“You don’t play at it, Miss Simmons—you are an astronomer, a better one naturally than I am. Why should you not have a chance?”

“Because,” said she, “that isn’t the way the world works.”

He kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot. “It’s utter rot, regardless. You ought to have a chance.”

Unrefined though his manner of expression, Mr. Fitz’s fervency and conviction were so forceful that Jemma felt for a moment as though the ground had shifted beneath her feet. And perhaps it had. The moment when we first dare to believe the world ought not to be the way it is strikes with the force of an earthquake. She put out a hand, looking to steady herself, only to draw it back when she realised the only thing to lean upon was the figure of the man beside her. “So much for my fanciful wish,” said she, trying to laugh. “And you, Mr. Fitz? What would you ask the so-called star for?”

He looked up from the ground and smiled, just a bit at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll keep it to myself for now if you don’t mind, Miss Simmons. Your confidence deserves another but—” Turning his face to the sky, he watched a cloud disappear behind the large block of the Observatory building. “I’d like to wait until it has a chance to come true.”

A girl who had already proclaimed her opinion that wishing on stars was a game of fools ought, perhaps, to have chastised him, but wiser heads will understand why she did not. Instead, she followed his gaze and stood contentedly, at rest with herself and all the world. “Oh, Mr. Fitz, look. There’s Venus.”

He started, panic appearing in his eyes. At once Jemma remembered what their conversation had made her forget, that he was due to be at the Observatory when the evening star appeared and that he was now past his time due to dallying with her. “Do hurry!” she cried, “I’ll be alright on my own.”

He hesitated, seemingly torn in two directions. “Only if I lose my position I’ll lose—”

“No, you mustn’t. Truly, Mr. Fitz, I will be all right.”

“Let me see you out of the park at least,” said he, and did so at twice the speed with which they had come. At the gates he tried to apologise profusely, so that she was forced to all but abandon him mid-sentence. Peering back over her shoulder in the growing dark to ensure he wasn’t allowing his scruples to overcome his sense, she watched him lope away, trip, muffle a curse, and keep going. Fondness did a quadrille with worry. She would so much regret being the cause of his unemployment. And yet, she could not find it within her heart to regret their tryst entirely. Not yet.

Had anyone else known about Jemma’s evening tête-à-tête with Mr. Fitz, she would have been subjected to a barrage of probing questions and unsolicited opinions, not to mention high expectations. As they did not, Jemma made sense of it on her own. She had no qualms about sharing her heartfelt desire with Mr. Fitz, confident that he would treat both it and her with the same respect he had always shown; his response to her insistence that it was impossible, too, was only in keeping with their friendship thus far. Anything more, Jemma concluded she had imagined. In truth, the business of the house left her little enough time to dwell on the quiet suspicion that, for a moment, she would have rather let the sky fall around them than continue quietly in its courses; if Venus had taken on a new shine for her, well, it was surely because the sky was so beautiful at this time of year. When next she saw Mr. Fitz, no doubt everything would be as before.

This hypothesis, however, was not tested for some time. Several days passed without hide or hair of him, which the household found unusual but not alarming. When it stretched into a week, broken only by a brief appearance at the breakfast table on the fifth day, Mrs. Simmons began to be concerned. However, a hasty interview before he dashed off at half-past ten in the morning revealed he had no intention whatsoever of giving up the lodging but was likely to be at the Observatory rather more than less over the coming weeks, allowing that good lady to breathe a sigh of relief; but Jemma could not let hers out yet. She had every reason to believe that the sudden increase in hours directly resulted from Mr. Fitz’s tardiness due to their dalliance, and while she was pleased he remained employed, she could not help but lament the exchange. Even for that golden quarter-hour, she would not easily relinquish their easy, regular conversation. She might do so in the end, but not easily.

 One morning, though, she found a small posy in her basket of washing, the stems wrapped in a damp bit of paper with a slightly smudged note:  _ Please accept my regret that I haven’t been able to give you the observations or any pencils; I’m working on a special project that’s requiring all my time and attention. I will when I see you next.  _ Tucked safely into her logbook, it eased her mind considerably. He hadn’t forgotten her, nor was he resentful; he was only busy, as she was, and they would meet again when time allowed. The washing that day looked like bunting on the line.

Whatever was keeping him had a tight grip; as the summer drew on Mr. Fitz seemed as absent as Orion, appearing, like that constellation, in the early morning and vanishing as soon as the sun rose in its fullness. He did not forget Jemma, though—an inked list of observations joined his note in its hiding place, then a second. Jemma recorded each thoroughly, dutifully, and without any of the excitement the information had given her scant months ago. Perhaps, she allowed, it was only the season. An observer of the night sky, she always resented the long summer days and rejoiced when winter returned; this year, however, the summer days seemed interminable, wending sluggishly through July into August. “The dog days,” her father called them from his seat in the drawing room, where he had improved enough to spend a few hours in the evening.

“Why?” Lizzy asked.

One of the young Simmons piped up: “Mr. Fitz says it’s because of a star we can’t see here.”

“Sirius,” Jemma added without looking up from her mending, the heat in her face not solely due to her proximity to the hearth. “It’s called the Dog Star because of the constellation of which it’s part. The ancients could see it in the summer.”

“Did Mr. Fitz tell you that too, Jemma?” Lizzy asked slyly.

“He didn’t have to; I read it in a book on navigation.”

“Mr. Fitz!” cried Mr. Simmons, “now there’s a clever fellow. Ground my spectacles for me the other day; I can see ever so much better now. Loosened the earpieces, too, so they don’t cut into my ears. Said he’s been working with glass and metal a great deal of late.”

“I thought he only did mathematics up there,” said Mrs. Simmons.

“The instruments, perhaps. Or whatever he does with the clocks.”

“They’re chronometers, Father, and that’s mathematics as well,” said Jemma.

Lizzy refrained from comment this time, but not from the significant glances Jemma resolutely ignored. The pencils’ origin had at last been discovered, leading to much amusement on the young girl’s part; Jemma had found argument only prolonged the teasing and had learnt it was better to feign ignorance. “Stop looking like a puss, Lizzy, and come hold my yarn for me,” said Mrs. Simmons, and that ended that conversation. If Jemma wondered why Mr. Fitz had found the time to repair her father’s spectacles but had not been able to do more than drop carefully inked memorandum into her apron pocket, she did not feel it necessary to voice. Some things are best kept to the secret drawers of one’s heart, to be taken out and examined only in private, and Jemma had become expert in tucking things away.

Finding time to do so, between her chores and away from Lizzy, required even more intrigue than had been previously necessary, but Jemma was far more clever than her situation allowed her to be, and she rose to the challenge admirably. Excuses were concocted, spare moments pinched from either side of other tasks, and if all else failed, a tisane before bed provided a solitary quarter-hour together while the pot boiled and the herbs brewed. More and more often, Jemma found herself resorting to this last method, until every evening found her lingering over her quiet cup with tiny scraps of crinkled paper twisted between her fingers. In lieu of new observations, she made do with old ones. Though she knew her calculations were correct, she wondered sometimes if she hadn’t missed something that would result in a different solution.

“Miss Simmons?”

She started, nearly slopping the tea over her papers, and was glad that the darkness of the room hid her expression. Light wasn’t necessary to identify the person standing in the doorway, though the moon behind him cast his familiar shadow across her work. “Mr. Fitz.”

That gentleman nodded, coming into the room with some hesitation. “I had not—I did not expect to see you here. This evening.”

“I did not expect to see you any evening,” said she, “nor, perhaps, any time at all. You have been so absent of late.”

“Yes. I’ve been—”

“You said.” Jemma dropped her gaze, using the spilt tea as an excuse not to meet his eyes which, contrary to the laws of nature, seemed to be brighter in the dark.

“Yes.” He made a hesitant sound in his throat and shuffled his feet, looking down as well. Then, seeming to find courage among the scraps of paper scattered across the table, continued in a stronger voice: “But it’s done now. The project, I mean. I only have to present it for approval.”

“With all the time and work you’ve put in, I’m certain it will be approved.”

“I wish I could be so sure.” 

A moment of silence followed, in which Jemma wished for the first time that she had been a reader of novels and Mr. Fitz, truth be told, had not dissimilar thoughts. 

“Er, Miss Simmons.”

“Yes?”

“Would you care to see it?”

“Your project?” said she, surprised. “How can I?”

“It’s here,” said he, taking a step closer only to back away again, gesturing towards the door. “At least, it’s outside. Could you...would you, I mean. Would you accompany me into the yard to see it?”

Though no one was likely to be in the kitchen at nearly eight bells of the dog watch, Jemma looked over her shoulder regardless before rising and slipping her logbook with its attendant notes into her pocket. Had someone appeared she still would have followed him into the star-speckled night, albeit with her attention split between what he wanted to show her and her excuses for her behavior; the only eyes upon them being friendly ones, however, no one will require an explanation. 

The yard, small and crowded with the detritus of ten people, proved a bit of an obstacle course in the dark, and Mr. Fitz had to put out his hand to keep Jemma from stumbling more than once. The small size, however, meant that they came to their goal in short order, and when the candle fell upon it Jemma could not help but gasp. There in the one clear square of moonlight the yard could boast stood a telescope: three feet long and twice as wide as her father’s spyglass, gleaming goldly upon a wooden three-legged stand, the scope pointed to the heavens and a chair already drawn up to the eyepiece. Jemma drew close, marvelling, her hand gently drifting down the tube without dislodging it. “I don’t understand,” said she, feeling somewhat breathless, “why is it here? Aren’t you going to have to take it up to the Observatory, and won’t that place the lenses at risk?”

“It will have to be moved,” he agreed, “and when it is we’ll be very careful. But it isn’t for the Observatory. They have telescopes enough up there; this one isn’t of enough quality to join their throng. I’m not, er, I did the best I could, but I haven’t done this before.”

“You ground Father’s lenses, though,” said she before realising what he meant. “Mr. Fitz! You built this? With your own hands?”

“Nothing but.” He held out his hands for her inspection, displaying enough cuts and scrapes to be visible even in the candlelight. “Spectacles are a good deal less temperamental than telescopes. It isn’t very wrong, though. You should be able to see fairly well.”

“May I—” She glanced back at it, heart beating double speed. “Oh, please, may I look through it?”

“Of course,” said he, and she passed him the candle and was in the chair before his next words penetrated her understanding, “it’s for you.”

Her heart, which had been all but sprinting, came to a dead stop, and her limbs seemed transformed to stone. He stood before her with hands still outstretched, his face in the moonlight at once equal amounts of tremulous hope and fear. As though by a flash from the heavens, all Jemma’s observations were cast in an entirely new light; she underwent her own Copernican revolution as she realised that all her excitement over the observations from the Observatory, the recent dissatisfaction with her own old work, the pleasure she felt in his company and the joy she received from his notes, had nothing to do with astronomical motion and everything to do with—him! Stricken by joy, she found herself unable to speak, to move, to give any sign she understood his meaning, though the truth of it warmed her like the sun rising.

Taking her silence for—oh, who can explain what goes through the mind of a man in love?—Mr. Fitz began speaking quickly in that stumbling, precious way of his: “it’s yours, regardless, I asked your father and he gave his permission for you to have it, but Miss Simmons, I can’t pretend—that is, it means more than that to me. More than a telescope. I have have come to— to care for you, most warmly, and I want you to have the opportunity to discover something wonderful, because you deserve the chance, but also because I want your happiness more than, I think, my own. I could support you well and we could order our whole household so you can observe the stars every night and I vow that when you discover something I will, by no means, take credit for it like Sir William took credit for Miss Herschel’s.”

Jemma laughed—she couldn’t help it, the elation building up in her must have  _ some _ vent—but fortunately, Mr. Fitz took it as the encouragement it was, and an answering joy spread across his face. Then, falling to his knees in the middle of the dirty yard, he took her hands in his and spoke firmly, all doubt swallowed up in delight. “Miss Simmons, what I mean is, will you be my wife?”

No girl needs words to respond to that question and Jemma did not use them, leaning forward to—well, does it take a great deal of effort to imagine what two young people in that situation might spend a few moonlit moments enjoying? Suffice it to say, Mr. Fitz’s months of work on the telescope would be wasted, had the desired result truly been the observation of the night sky; as it was not, both parties later confessed themselves more than content with the evening’s activities. And when they had come to an understanding and negotiated all terms satisfactorily, the astronomical events they wished to observe needed no telescope to view: a shower of falling stars, each dropping without a wish attached because, as he told her, he already had what he would have asked for; and Venus in her benevolence smiling down on the two lovers with the promise of a beautiful life ahead. 

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of notes here, but they're about accuracy and history, so you can skip them if you don't care about that kind of thing.
> 
> 1\. The title is a quote from the last line of Dante's Divine Comedy—it's referring to God, and describes how Dante looks into his face and grows blind from seeing the light that comes from "the Love that moves the Sun and all the stars". It's so beautiful and gives me all the emotions.  
> 2\. I tried my best with the astronomy, so everything general about where stars are at what seasons should be accurate, but I am not an astronomer so please don't look tooooo carefully at specifics.  
> 3\. So, the Second Assistant at the Observatory was actually a position given according to seniority, so Fitz wouldn't have it. But his responsibilities are accurate for the period, as is everything he says about Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal.  
> 4\. Chronometers! I love them! The first ones are at the Royal Observatory now and they are mesmerising.  
> 5\. The Time Ball on top of the Observatory is still there, but they have since painted it red. It still drops every day at the same time.  
> 6\. I assume we all know that falling stars are really meteors? I did learn that the superstition about wishing on them comes from the ancient Greeks, so it's totally in period.  
> 7\. Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus and a bunch of other stuff; his sister Caroline was an astronomer in her own right, but Sir William had to present her findings at the Academy. He didn't exactly take credit for her work, to be fair to him. Still. Patriarchy!  
> 8\. How difficult is it to make a telescope by hand? LOOK FITZ IS A GENIUS OKAY. I DON'T MAKE THE RULES.  
> 9\. The story starts at six am and ends at about ten pm. The bells may be a bit confusing! 
> 
> And that is all!


End file.
